O-protected cyanohydrins, such as O-trimethylsilyl cyanohydrins, have considerable utility as precursors to biologically important compounds and are useful as acyl anion equivalents in many synthetic transformations.
Several one-pot methods for synthesizing silylated cyanohydrins are known. Rasmussen and Heilmann (Synthesis, Mar. 1978, pp. 219-21) disclose refluxing a carbonyl compound (aldehydes or ketones) with solid potassium cyanide and chlorotrimethylsilane in either acetonitrile or dimethylformamide solvent. Sukata (Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn., v.60 n.10, 1987, pp. 3820-22) discloses reacting an aldehyde or a ketone with methylsilylchloride in the presence of a solvent and Amberlite XAD resin that has been impregnated with potassium cyanide or sodium cyanide. Duboudin and co-workers (Synthesis, Mar. 1982, pp. 212-14) disclose mixing chlorotrimethylsilane and potassium cyanide in acetonitrile and in the presence of a catalytic amount of sodium iodide and pyridine. These methods require expensive reagents, cyanide salts, solvents and catalyst adding to the complexity and cost of the cyanosilylation reaction.